SelfKey Announces New Banking Partner and Marketplace

The digital identity-focused blockchain project SelfKey has started works with two international banks based in the Dutch Antilles and the Cayman Islands, which will offer their banking products through the SelfKey Wallet and Marketplace.

The Cayman Islands-based bank will offer bank accounts and gold-backed loans in the SelfKey marketplace, available both for personal and corporate customers. The gold-backed loan scheme allows account holders the ability to buy pure, physical gold and then obtain a loan of up to 75% the physical gold’s value.

The Dutch Antilles-based bank will initially accept business and personal bank account applications in either EUR or USD.

SelfKey prefers not to disclose the banks’ names until the bank accounts marketplace is available to the public, in order to avoid any potential risk or external intercedence to these strategic relationships, thus ensuring their proper development.

These banking products will be aimed at customers dealing with cryptocurrencies and companies that have previously done token sales that successfully meet bank requirements and pass due diligence checks.

These are yet other collaborations for a project that has grand visions for a partnership network, and has seen more and more entities steadily jumping on board.

The partnerships will focus particularly on SelfKey’s marketplace, which the project is molding to be an all-inclusive center for digital identities and financial services. These will include incorporation, residency, citizenship by investment, bank accounts, e-wallets, and digital exchanges. More services are planned to be introduced, including passport and airline booking services. A glance at SelfKey’s website indicates the extent of their efforts to establish wide-reaching global partnerships.

SelfKey Has Hit a Few Milestones Recently

As we mentioned, the project has been experiencing a spate of activity. On January 27, SelfKey announced a partnership with Polymath, the securities token platform that aims to bring traditional securities assets into the world of blockchain. This is a shrewd practical partnership that brings SelfKey’s identity services to issuers of security tokens and investors, satisfying KYC norms when Polymath launched in 2018.

The CEO of Polymath, Trevor Koverko, has said, “Working with a project like SelfKey is paramount to achieving our goals. Our mission is to guide companies through every step of a securities token launch. One of the steps, and a key focal area for us, is KYC.”

Last week, SelfKey and Kyber Network also announced a partnership, which will enable a ETH-based token exchange within the SelfKey wallet using Kyber Network infrastructure.

A large aspect of SelfKey’s approach to realizing its goal of giving users control of their own digital identities will rest in its marketplace. SelfKey creates a space where the individual, through the concept of “Self-Sovereign Identity,” is the only one with access to his or her identity. The attesting entity, such as a utility provider or a notary, and the service provider, such as a bank, can securely and efficiently process the information. During this process, the identity data is secure, accessible only with the consent of the identity owner.

What Is the SelfKey Marketplace?

Such innovations in digital identity would be irrelevant if no certifier and service providers agreed to participate in the use of SelfKey’s blockchain technology.

Several attesting entities and relying parties have indeed embraced this concept, as the SelfKey marketplace will be home to several KYC-necessary services at launch, such as NTL Trust, an authorized immigration by investment agent that covers almost all citizenship by investment programs.

One of the projected marketplaces that most excites the cryptocurrency community is the ICO marketplace. The SelfKey wallet will allow users to instantly share their identity with ICO projects and send ETH from the same application.

Considering that SelfKey has already powered KYC of successful ICOs such as Airswap, Gatcoin, HoToken, or Aditus, it is likely that more projects will be interested in using the SelfKey wallet.

The expediting of the verification process is likely to attract more entities to the service. The project will also offer corporate-level solutions to digital identity management. The SelfKey whitepaper and roadmap detail a Corporate Identity Wallet that will provide linked digital identities, allowing for multi-level verification This would greatly reduce the time taken to carry out large-scale KYC corporate processes.

This corporate and individual targeting makes SelfKey a comprehensive platform for digital identity management. The project’s efforts indicate that this is more than merely talk; once launched, the marketplace – in addition to the services mentioned earlier – will offer bank accounts and money transfers. In the future, they plan to introduce precious metals, insurance, commercial and P2P loans, and personal loans, apart from several other services.

Test the SelfKey Marketplace For Yourself

SelfKey’s website includes amarketplace demo, which should give you a good idea of the magnitude and scope the SelfKey project aspires to. You would see a list of service providers on the marketplace who have either listed their services for free or for a certain token value.

The KEY token acts as a facilitator of the marketplace, and staking tokens will be required to unlock marketplaces as a proof of reputation. In SelfKey’s alpha marketplace, you can see that passports, residency, wallets, coin exchanges, incorporations, trusts, real estate, health insurance, and money transfers are listed as services.

We recommend using the marketplace to get a sense of how it works and how it lets you take control of your digital identity. While it is only in the alpha stage, its functions do highlight the breadth of services that SelfKey is striving for. You can read more about the marketplace on SelfKey’s blog.

Conclusion

The digital world is increasingly becoming a warehouse for countless digital identities. This brings with it the concern that these identities – and the personal information they are linked to – are vulnerable to being hacked. Blockchain technology and platforms like SelfKey offer a solution to that problem, and they also offer essential services, conducted in a manner that is considerably faster and more convenient than the standard.

SelfKey’s marketplace and its partnerships are verifiable proof that genuinely result-oriented work is being conducted by the SelfKey team. The upcoming months should tell us more about how they progress and, hopefully, they will bring news of more partnerships.

About Abhimanyu Krishnan

Abhimanyu is an engineer on paper but a writer by living. To him, the most celebratory aspect of blockchain technology is its democratic nature. While he’s hodling, he can be found reading a good book or making the local dogs howl with the sound of his guitar playing.